2013 Tata Steel Lineup Announced

The organisers of the annual Tata Steel chess festival in Wijk Aan Zee have today announced the confirmed line-ups for the A and B Groups at the 75th edition to be held from 11-27 January 2013.

Despite the difficult economic environment, the A Group once again has an excellent mix of players and promises to be a great tournament.

World #1 Magnus Carlsen will be in Wijk for the 10th year in succession, and last year's winner world #2 Lev Aronian will be defending his title.

Red hot star Fabiano Caruana is next in ranking order, followed by world champion Vishy Anand. The 2011 winner Hikaru Nakamura will be flying the flag for the USA, while four local players will hope to make a good impression on the tournament, headed by Anish Giri.

2009 winner Sergey Karjakin will be in the mix again, while Pentala Harikrishna qualifies as last year's B Group winner.

Perhaps most eye-catching of all is the inclusion of women's world champion Hou Yifan in what will be her first Grand Slam tournament with the world's elite (male) players.

The A Group

Name

Nat

Elo

Rank

Carlsen, Magnus

NOR

2848

1

Aronian, Levon

ARM

2815

2

Caruana, Fabiano

ITA

2786

5

Anand, Viswanathan

IND

2775

6

Karjakin, Sergey

RUS

2775

7

Nakamura, Hikaru

USA

2755

12

Wang, Hao

CHN

2737

19

Leko, Peter

HUN

2732

22

Giri, Anish

NED

2715

28

Harikrishna, Pentala

IND

2692

59

van Wely, Loek

NED

2691

61

Sokolov, Ivan

NED

2677

77

L'Ami, Erwin

NED

2629

134

Hou, Yifan

CHN

2606

203

The B Group is an interesting mix of youth and experience. The three top finishers from this year's Junior World Championship, Alexander Ipatov, Richard Rapport and Nils Grandelius will be playing, as will 16-year old Russian star Daniil Dubov.

The more experienced members of the B Group will include former winners Predrag Nikolic and Jan Timman. The C Group line-up will be announced nearer to the event.